Banned from Fotothing

Today I was banned and removed from Fotothing – the photo sharing site I founded nearly 5 years ago and late sold to ADVFN.

The reason for my ban?

After someone posted saying they wished someone who cared about the site would buy it from ADVFN, I replied with:

I just found 57p down the back of the sofa. I’m in!

And that it seems is all it takes to get you banned from the site. At some point in the last few years it has changed from a fun photo sharing site into a strange communist state where any form of criticism is unacceptable and punishable by “permanent deletion”.

This makes me very sad. And what makes me even more sad is that ADVFN are now systematically deleting any and all criticism from the forums.

Last time I ruffled ADVFN’s feathers, they threatened to sue me. But being removed from the site I founded – by people who neither understand the community or care about it – feels worse than that.

Fotothing took up a fairly big chunk of my life for a long time and I made a lot of good friends there. I find it utterly baffling how a company could deliberately run the site into the ground, squander opportunities and censor the community that made the site such an exciting and vibrant place.

Oh well. Luckily I have another photo site to work on. Anyone who wants to is welcome to join me there, but if you’re a Fotothing user, then personally I think you should stay and fight. Make yourself heard in the forums and with your own photos. It’s your site, not ADVFN’s.

15 thoughts on “Banned from Fotothing”

At the moment I am still an FT PRO member. After I have seen what happend at FT, I will not continue PRO membership and I really consider to quit FT. A difficult decision, because I put so much effort in my FT photos. It would be easier if many more FT-ers make Fotonomy their main photo site.
Peter.

Dom,
We go back a long time. I joined FT a few months after you started the site. I have witnessed and experienced the joy and fun we used to have.
Together with some others I served as a moderator , I for the Central North American region. As moderators we kept the porn off the site and it worked well.
Unfortunately, ever since ADVFN took over, Fotothing has changed from a fun place to a dictatorial site.
The last week has really been ridiculous. Now they even try to censor free speech in the forums.
I am still a paying member, and I will remain at FT and fight from the inside until they change or ban me as well. Obviously, eventually I will change my status from paying member to free member.
I will not pay for the privilege to be insulted.
Yes, I will frequent and upload more photo’s at fotonomy.:):):)

Dom, so sorry to read this. I do not like what is happening over there. The thing that irks me the most is the lack of communication between us, the paying members, and the regime. I have only been a member for a little over a year and I have noticed how much the place has changed since then! It’s sad what is going on.

excuse me for jumping in here but I don’t know where else to post. I only joined fotothing fairly recently and became aware that there were some problems, such a shame as the people on there were great and I was made to feel welcome straight away.

I am now back in Spain with only a very slow dial-up connection and tried to access the site this evening to no avail. Can anyone tell me – is it me, or has the site disappeared for ever????

Barbara, we think that they are down. We have a group of fotothingers over on flicker and we keep in touch over there when this happens. It is called “fotothing users group”. Hope to see you join that group, too.
Dom also has a site called fotonomy that a lot of ft’ers belong to.

I just can’t understand why ADVFN are letting fotothing die….and if it goes on the way it is that is what will happen!

It now seems like we are sailing along with nobody at the helm, it’s been obvious for some time that Nick (eggy) is no longer running the site…which is a real shame as he did care about us and he tried to make things better whenever they would let him!

Like many others I’m disappointed in the way things are going and the dictatorial way they are now behaving…. but I will stay!
I’ve made many friends in the four years I’ve been there, and though I’m a member of a few other sites I’ve never found one that is half as good as fotothing.

Barbara, you will find us at…http://www.flickr.com/groups/fotothing/
But I’m hoping that this is just a glitch, and that we will be back home at fotothing very soon.
If you private message me I will give you my email address.

Dom I pulled my pro last month when I heard what they did to you. I love so many features of your FOTONOMY site and find it VERY user friendly but I just have time for one site right now. When things slow down I’ll add some more pics to my Fotonomy account and keep in touch with FT friends over there as well as on Flickr.

Barbara: I remember seeing you join the Flickr Fotothingers group some time ago. It’s a good source of information for when FT goes down (which is a frequent event)

I deleted my FotoThing account after I discovered that more than 100 of my photos and comments had been deleted without warning. I still have no idea why my photos were deleted. I was a FotoThing member for more than 3 years and made many friends, but I couldn't stand being treated like I was in a third world dictatorship. So, I told FotoThing support to kiss my ass and to completely delete my account. I am sad about doing what I did, but that is the price of intellectual freedom and freedom of speach. I fought in Viet Nam and now I find that freedom of speech is threatened right here in America. Glady8er2